Excellence from Elsewhere

1/29/10

The Chapel of Shrapnel and Nighttime Still

Once, a good long time ago, I created the first Chapel of Shrapnel. There's upteen some odd variations of The Chapel of Shrapnel, but i think i'm most fond of this one here. I produced it last night with pastel and other than the fact the scanner (yet again) obliterated some of the shading, i must say it came out pretty interesting. The sky has a collection of different shades of blue and the ground is a lovely aray of greens. The other picture, Nighttime Still came out equally well. I've never really worked with pastels so to have these come out this good (and look the way i intended them to look) is quite a surprise. The flecks of light reflected from the birds, the ground, tombstones and tree are what makes this complete. Without those reflections this picture would be as dead as the things the crows eat.For some reason, the scanner scanned this one in a little darker than the other. I then toned it up a bit so the colour would come through better. It's a pretty mundane scene but it has a calming effect if you stare at it long enough. Nothing is more calming than a graveyard at night, just after the leaves have fallen but before the brutal cold of winter moves in. All the world around you at that point is dead and the silence that it brings is golden.